curmudgeonly chaos

I was challenged recently on Facebook about the fact that I only post complaints about the things that I own. I rant but I never rave. What can I say? The things that work don't call attention to themselves. To rise to that challenge, here is a group of devices in my life that always seem to work and have given years of faithful service.

Harvest Maid Food Dehydrator – I was given this cylindrical white plastic dehydrator back in 1986. It has never seen a year without use. It continues to function brilliantly, dehydrating generations of tomatoes and fruit.

My GT Karakorum mountain bike – I bought it in Phoenix in 1990 after my previous bike was stolen. It's probably covered thousands of miles. As I've aged, its been re-outfitted to meet my needs. It still works great.

Schwinn 203 stationary bike – a workhorse that I've had for years. It's my primary means of aerobic exercise it foul weather. It doesn't stress my back. With its heart rate monitor and automatic throttling, it can keep me exercising at exactly the right level. It's never had a problem.

Zojirushi bread machine – hundreds of loaves.

Kinesis Advantage keyboard – its the opposite of the bulge keyboards that were popular in the nineties. The keys are divided into two dishes spread widely apart. Backspace is under the left thumb; space and enter are done with the right thumb. It has built in macro programming and switches easily between dvorak and qwerty layouts.

Pacific Yurts – my smaller yurt is fourteen years old and still repelling the rain and resisting the wind.

Tempest pellet stove – work great at fourteen years old. It's simple without the features of its more modern brethren, but it's the most efficient stove I've ever seen. The exhaust is cool.

Weso Boss boots – they're nearly twenty years old and have been resoled several times. Yet, they're still solid and useful. I always wear them when I ride.

Langlitz Leather Jacket – also nearly twenty and still working just fine.

Stiffle Lamp – sitting on my desk is a brass lamp that was in my mother's living room in the 1960s. The cord is still uncracked and this is the one lamp for which I've never had to replace the switch.

United Tropicana Pinball Machine – manufactured in 1954, this electro-mechanical marvel still works. This device was built to last. The plastic power cord that I replaced in 1974 has gotten mouse chewed, but that is about its only problem.

Mini maglite – a flashlight that I bought in sometime in the 1980s. The knurled metal tube is wearing smooth. I converted it to an LED bulb a few years back.

Mountain Smith backpack - I've got two of them in different sizes. I bought them in 1987 and have used them nearly daily since.

Sierra Designs Cumulus Down Sleeping Bag - From 1981, and still my preferred sleeping bag.


There must be more, but that's enough.

Most folks know me as a long time Linux guy that has dabbled in Mac OS/X. Years ago, however, I was a Microsoft fan boy. I keep an eye on what Microsoft is doing, but haven't bothered with a recent Microsoft operating system.

My nursery business uses QuickBooks running on Win2000 as a VMWare virtual machine under Linux. In a letter from my accountant this week, I was told that they will no longer support such an ancient version of QuickBooks and I must upgrade. I looked at QuickBooks for the Mac, but decided that I would get the Windows version so I could continue to use virtual machines. I see no reason that my books should be dedicated to a certain piece of hardware.

The QuickBooks 2010 does not run on my old moldy Win2000 virtual machines. So I decided to get a copy of Windows 7 and setup a new virtual machine. I picked up a copy at OfficeMax this afternoon and sat down this evening to install it.

After forty minutes of installation, I'm asked to login for the first time, but it won't accept my password. WTF? I specifically set it up to not require a password, but there it is telling me that my password or user name is not correct. I click the "reset password" button and it tells me that this option will only work if I have previously created a "restore password" disk. Huh?

So I've had Windows for about an hour, and already I have to re-install the operating system. Whee.

As well as the oil that I drained out of my bike last night